


Snow Angel

by MykEsprit



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Christmas Eve, Comfort, Divorced Hermione, F/M, Fluff, Pining Harry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-20
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:46:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21868480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MykEsprit/pseuds/MykEsprit
Summary: On Christmas Eve, Harry escorts a drunk Hermione home.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Harry Potter
Comments: 19
Kudos: 171
Collections: Harmony Advent Collection 2019





	Snow Angel

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to the mods of Harmony & Co for hosting this event!

"I'm so sorry." Harry turned the corners of his lips up into what he hoped was a sheepish grin. He had seen the twins do it countless times, and they always got away with murder. But then again, he was neither Fred nor George; he was simply Harry Potter, and while that might have gotten him out of a few scrapes in Diagon Alley, his name held no clout at The Flying Pig on Stratford-Upon-Avon.

The glare the bartender returned confirmed it.

"We'll pay for any damages," Harry braved under the bartender's withering gaze. He turned to a man leaning against the bar, cradling his swollen cheekbone. “We’re sorry about that, too.”

“No, we’re not,” a voice slurred mulishly behind Harry. “I’m not shorry at-tall!” She pushed her way past his elbow, bearing down on the injured man. “In fact, I’m not done until this bloody barstool is firmly secured up your--”

“All right.” Harry placed a hand on her shoulder. If the name Harry Potter held no sway in the Muggle world, neither did Hermione Weasley.

 _Granger_ , he reminded himself. She had been a Weasley for over a decade, so it was easy for him to forget.

 _She_ , on the other hand, needed help in the forgetting. Tonight, it seemed she had found that help at the bottom of a 40-year-old bottle of scotch.

“Let me _go_ , Harry, or I swear to Merlin that other stool’ll be yours--”

Harry yanked her toward him. She stumbled back, landing against the side of his ribcage. He wrapped an arm around her, studiously ignoring her squirming and the death glare she directed at his head. With his free hand, he dropped a thick pile of Muggle money on the counter. He glanced between it and the two men, who now stared at the money with various degrees of shock. “Just--er--that should cover everything.” He grimaced at the bartender. “Keep the change.” 

He tightened his grip around Hermione’s shoulders and then, without a goodbye to the stupefied men, turned away from them, lifting Hermione in the process.

“What are you--” Hermione stuttered. The tips of her toes dragged on the sticky wooden floor as they crossed the bar. “Put me down! I’m not a bloody doll or a bloody child or a bloody--”

Harry sighed, tuning her out as he pushed the door open. The winter air nipped the back of his neck. He wanted to turn his collars up against the cold, but he was afraid that he might lose grip on his squirrely best friend. They rounded the corner of the building and headed into the shadowy alley. “Are you going to run off if I put you down so we can Apparate?”

Hermione’s face scrunched up.

“That settles it.” Harry held his free hand out to the side. A moment later, his broom flew into it, and before she could scream, they were hurtling through the air.

“Harry,” Hermione muffled into his collar as she buried her face deeper. Her arms were now locked around his chest like a vice. “You great bloody prat. This ride better not sober me up. I invested a great deal of money to not having to feel tonight, and if you ruin it, I shall be very put out.”

“Hermione,” he began to say, but he was at a loss on how to continue. ‘I’m sorry’ felt too little, and ‘Chin up, it’ll all get better’ was too disingenuous. ‘Do you want to talk about it’ might have sounded better, but it would involve him having to respond to anything she might say, and he was just so terrible when it came to talking about feelings. So instead, he wrapped his arm tighter around her waist and said, “Hang on. I’ll get you home soon.”

Hermione sighed; incrementally, she molded against him. 

For the rest of the ride, they were silent. She didn’t complain about the biting cold; he didn’t mention the trickle of tears he felt on his collarbone.

Soon, they were circling their descent. Harry landed the broom neatly onto a patch of grass. He steaded Hermione on her feet.

“Thanks,” she mumbled, her eyes trained sadly on her cold, dark cottage. “I can take it from here.” She trudged up the path, shoulders slumped, curls hanging limply between her shoulder blades.

Harry caught up to her in three strides, snatching her hand in the air. “Wait.”

Slowly, she turned towards him, not meeting his gaze. “I’ll apologize for my appalling behaviour tomorrow. Just, please, I’m so tired--”

“You know, I’m not going away until I know you’re all right.”

“Then you best settle in, Harry Potter, because you’ll be here all night.”

For a moment, he stared at her. And then he plopped down on the soft bank of snow on her yard. “All right. If you insist.”

“What are you doing?”

“Waiting until you feel better.”

She rolled her eyes and tugged his hand upward to no avail. “Have you gone mad?”

He quirked an eyebrow. “Have I?” He leaned back, falling into the powdery snow, taking her with him. 

Hermione landed on her stomach right beside him.“For Merlin’s sake!”

Harry couldn’t help but grin at the way she sputtered. It was a rare sight these days, even throughout her divorce, to catch Hermione so unguarded. There was never a crack in her stoic mask, never a hair out of place from her strict bun. But now here she was, lying on the snow beside him. Her curls had long escaped any form of imprisonment, and her cheeks had turned ruddy from the cold. 

A familiar sensation came over him, the urge to cup her apple-red cheek. His hand reached halfway between them--

Hermione's eyes narrowed suspiciously. “What are you doing?”

Quickly, Harry redirected his arm towards the ground. He extended all his limbs outward, and he swept them up and down along the snow. “Making a snow angel?” he said, and even he wasn’t convinced by his answer.

“A snow angel,” she said flatly. “I thought I was the drunk one.”

“I feel the urge to do it whenever I spot perfectly preserved snow,” he said. “It’s just a thing I do.”

“Since when?”

“Since always.” He scoffed. “It’s like, the third thing people know about me.”

“Right.” Hermione nodded. “Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, vanquisher of evil, and destroyer of pristine snow.”

“That’s me.”

“You’re mental.”

“Don’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it.” He winked. “Go on.”

Hermione stared at him, dead-eyed.

“Go on,” he insisted.

With a defeated snort, she flopped onto her back. Another moment and her limbs were mirroring his actions.

His grin grew wider. “See? Doesn’t that make you feel better already?”

“Shut up for a bit.”

He laughed silently as they continued sweeping their limbs across the snow. He stared up at the cloudless sky. The new moon meant the stars shone on them brighter. His eyes sought out Sirius in the sky, and it twinkled at him merrily.

“Harry.”

He turned his head towards Hermione. Her limbs were still moving--but the light caught the tear sliding down the corner of her eye, disappearing into the line of her hair.

He froze.

“I’m sorry you had to come and get me,” she whispered. “It just finally hit me today, you know? My divorce.”

The cool air was still. There was no sound except for the soft swishing of her limbs on the snow.

“Not _the_ divorce, exactly,” she said. “My relationship with Ron is over and had been long before we decided to get divorced, but...the aftermath of it all.” Her movements slowed to a stop, and she turned her gaze towards the empty cottage. “The loneliness. The fear that if Ron-bloody-Weasley couldn’t love me, then maybe there’s no one in the world who can.”

A small part of Harry’s brain reminded him to breathe.

She faced him again, a sad smile forming on her lips. “I’m sorry I ruined your holiday. You should spend tonight with someone you love. Christmas Eve is meant for the most important people in your life, and instead you’re wasting it on dreary, old me.”

Harry rolled onto his stomach, staring at her, wondering, for the millionth time, how this woman could be so smart and yet so oblivious at the same time. “Can’t I do both?”

Perhaps it was the way he said it; or maybe it was how he couldn’t stop staring at her. The silver starlight illuminated her face and made the snowflakes in her hair sparkle. And with her snow wings surrounding her, she was--

Breathtaking. Heart-wrenchingly, bone-achingly beautiful.

Something behind her eyes shifted. A look of caution. He wasn’t sure if it was directed inwards or at him. But there were other things buried beneath it--a dash of fear, a smidge of hope, and, trying to surface above it all--

A hint of longing.

“I’m...important to you?” 

This time, when his hand reached for her, he didn’t stop himself. “The _most_ important, Hermione. Always have been.”

“You...I’m...the most?”

His thumb stroke the top of her cheekbone; he smiled at her wistfully. “The mostest.”

She blinked. “Harry…” She placed a hand on top of his. “I...my divorce just went through,” she said weakly.

“I know.”

“And everything’s a mess.”

He nodded.

“And if anything…” She waved a hand between them. “It would be so, _so_ complicated.”

“I know that, too.” He sighed. “Gods, don’t I know it.” He tugged his hand away--

She held onto him fast. “But--”

His eyes met hers. He found that sliver of longing once again, and he clutched onto it like a lifeline in a storm.

“This is mad.” She laughed nervously. “What you’re saying…what you’re _implying_ is…”

He was never good at communicating his feelings--staying silent all these years had brought him nothing but pain. Words were never his strong suit.

Harry Potter was a man of _action_ , may all the gods be damned.

He angled his head down. Captured her lips.

All those years of imagining kissing her came crashing down on him; countless hours spent wondering how her lips would feel, what she tasted like, the little noises she would make--

It was only then that he realized how his imagination sorely lacked creativity. His most cherished visions paled in comparison to the reality of her kiss.

After a while, she pulled back. He would have been devastated, had he not caught the reluctant sigh that escaped her.

“Okay,” she said breathlessly. “What you're _heavily_ implying.”

Harry nodded, laughing quietly.

She cupped his face with both hands. “I don’t know what to say, Harry. I honestly don’t know. Except--” Her fingers explored the planes of his face; grazed the curves of his ears; curled into his hair. “Give me time. Just a little bit. Please.” 

“You can have all the time in the world, angel.” He turned his face, planting a kiss on her wrist. “I’ll be here when you’re ready.”

A smile tugged at the corners of her lips. “No, you won’t.” She nudged her head towards the cottage. “You can wait in there. With me.”


End file.
